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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. CLEARY.

or the last three years the Roman Catholic prelates have unweariediy and unceasingly branded our public school system as "gooaless," because the system was theoretically secular. Among the Roman Catholic representatives who have used thd wide and forceful vocabulary of denunciation of our system, Dr. Cleary is easily first In his remarkable pamphlet "Secularism Versus Religious Education" which appears under the imprimatur of Bishop Verdon, the language is almost vitrolic in its biting power. He declares in one place that religion is treated in our schools as though it was dangerous as the "declared leper or a bubonic rat," In a somewhat gentler way be says that "God and His law are as cotraband as pipe opium." With increasing mildness in another place he says that '-When the secular system was eet up in 1877, the New Zealand Government found the flag of Christ flying upon the schools, and it took it down." Elsewhere in the same remarkable pamphlet of denunciation, he says that "our Government tound God in in onr schools—it banehed Him therefrom" Such is our public school system as described in the lurid language of Bishop Cleary, who has been going through the country in reoent months delivering pleasing speeches to those wbose motto is "Hands off our seoular system." It may be sincerely hoped that Mr. G~ M. Thompson M, P., will have his attention directed by some of the witnesses to Dr. Cleary's avowed abhorrance of our national school system, and it is reasonable to hope that the committee will give Dr. Cleary an opportunity cf explaining tcday Hie reason why he is in agreement with those who are fighting for the preservation and p rpatuation of a secular system of education, which he so cordially hates,

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